Disclaimer: I do not own One Tree Hill or any of its characters.
Author's Note: Sorry that this update is late. I ended up sick on Sunday and Monday, so I was unable to write anything. This chatper was written in about half an hour, so excuse any mistakes.
Author's Note 2: This chapter doesn't really have any concept of time, but keep in mind that only the first two scenes overlap. The rest just kind of occur at random times during the morning.
Author's Note 3: Any one who guesses correctly who the mysterious creeper is at the end of the chapter gets a gold star!!!
Reviews are love!
Broken Hearts and Healing Minds
Chapter 35
Nathan pulled himself up the stairs to the apartment early the next morning as the sun began to rise over the city. He wasn't sure what he was going to find, but a darkened, silent apartment with Haley sitting at the table in the kitchen did not make the top ten list.
She was alone, obviously exhausted, and nursing a huge mug of something. Sniffing the air, Nathan identified the substance to be peppermint tea, one of Lucas's favorite drinks. That meant that Lucas was around somewhere. Gentle snores emitting from the living room signaled his brother's whereabouts.
"Hey," Haley said tiredly as Nathan turned on the lights and walked over to the cabinet to grab a glass. "Do you want a cup of tea? I didn't do that bad of a job with it."
"No thanks," Nathan said frostily. The image of her and Tyler out on the quad the day prior was too vivid in his mind to be kind to her.
"So I take it that you believed Peyton," Haley said sadly.
"Was she right?" Nathan challenged.
"Do you not remember anything that I told you before you asked me to marry you?" Haley demanded incredulously. "About how I refuse to have sex before I marry someone? Just because I'm not with you does not mean that doesn't still apply."
"I--."
"Forget it," Haley said standing up. "I came here to make sure that Lucas was okay and now that I have, I'm going home."
Nathan felt like a jackass as the door slammed shut behind Haley, leaving him alone in the nearly empty apartment with nothing to do. He sighed heavily.
Then, the phone rang.
Startled by the sudden noise in the otherwise silent apartment, Nathan jumped up and grabbed the cordless phone off of the counter.
"Hello?" he asked.
"This is dean of admissions at Duke University," a low, clear masculine voice said. "May I speak to Nathan Scott?"
Nathan froze in surprise.
"This is he," he managed to get out.
"Mr. Scott, I am pleased to inform you that we have once again revised our decision about your scholarship. If you agree to go to Duke, then you will have a full ride," the dean said.
"Are you serious?" Nathan demanded.
"Yes, Mr. Scott, I'm quite serious," the dean said sounding amused. "Didn't your brother tell you that he had called us?"
Nathan vaguely remembered Lucas saying something about calling Duke and talking to them about re-extending Nathan's scholarship offer. It turned out that he had been successful.
"I wasn't expecting to be accepted," Nathan said honestly.
"Well, you have been," the dean said. "We will be sending you the information in the mail. Congratulations, Mr. Scott. You are now officially a Blue Devil."
Lucas let out a groan as he forced his eyes open. His head ached and he felt like crap. There was no way he was going to be able to go to work that day. Then he remembered that he had taken the day off to spend the day with Peyton.
"Why do these things always happen to me?" he asked the empty room.
Receiving no answer from the blank walls, Lucas forced himself off of the couch, ignoring the sudden wave of dizziness and the accompanying throb in his head. He hoped there was still some Tylenol leftover in the cabinet in the kitchen.
"I wasn't expecting to be accepted," Nathan's surprised voice reached Lucas's ears as he pulled on a t-shirt and found a semi-pair of clean jeans.
"Thank you sir," Nathan said as Lucas emerged from the living room. "I won't let you down."
Lucas figured that it must have been the dean of admissions from Duke on the phone. He was glad for his brother and satisfied that all of his hard work with Nathan had paid off. Then he remembered what had happened at the party and all that pride went out the window.
Nathan was just hanging up the phone when Lucas entered the kitchen. The younger brother looked stunned as he turned around to face the elder.
"Hey," Nathan said quietly, obviously remembering the confrontation at the river court the evening before.
Lucas ignored him, going to the fridge and grabbing the orange juice and poured himself a glass.
"So this is how it's going to be, huh?" Nathan asked. "I don't do anything wrong, you get pissed because you think I do something wrong, you ask Dan to pay me off to leave, and you ignore me."
"I didn't ask Dan to pay you off," Lucas said astonished. "Why the hell would I want to do that?"
"You didn't ask Dan?" Nathan asked. "Then who did?"
"Dan is a bastard," Lucas said simply. "And what happened?"
"Why should I tell you? You won't believe me," Nathan said with a shrug.
"Don't you think I have a right not to believe you?" Lucas demanded. "You lied to me."
"I didn't about the party. I honestly didn't take the drugs," Nathan said.
"Excuse me if I have a hard time believing you," Lucas snapped as he rummaged around in the cabinet and found the half full bottle of Tylenol.
"Speak for yourself," Nathan said glaring at the two pills Lucas had in his hand. "How many of those of you been taking?"
"You try having a week long migraine and see where it takes you," Lucas snapped. "I haven't taken anything for kicks in years."
"Are you okay?" Nathan asked suddenly sympathetic.
"So you've finally come out of your world revolves around me and everyone needs to focus only on me phase and have decided to acknowledge that the rest of us might have other things going on?" Lucas demanded as he swallowed the Tylenol and drained his orange juice.
"Lucas," Nathan began.
"I have to go," Lucas snapped. "Don't be here when I get back."
He turned around and stormed out of the apartment, not certain as to where he was heading, but knowing that he had to get out of there.
Peyton wished that someone would kill her. She had one hell of a hangover and remembered enough about the night before to know that she had messed up big time.
"Here."
Haley had to be some sort of angel, Peyton decided as she accepted the huge mug of coffee that the other girl was holding. It smelled amazing.
"Thank you," she said letting out a sigh of contentment as she swallowed the heavenly liquid.
"Stephen made it and said that you might want some," Haley said with a shrug. "It's not because I feel sorry for you. Hell, after last night, I'm not sure if I even like you."
"I'm sorry, Hales," Peyton said taking another drink of coffee and closing her eyes for a second.
"You don't get to be sorry after what you did to everyone last night," Haley said angrily. "You bitch out Lucas and Nathan before you go and make out with Greg Baker right in front of Lucas. Then you tell Nathan that I'm screwing Tyler and then you end up by yourself and need a ride home, where you tell me all the wonderful things you did. That was before you threw up all over my pillows and gave yourself a nasty knock when falling against the toilet. I was all for letting you fall in, but Brooke told me that I would hate myself later."
Something told Peyton that Haley probably wouldn't.
"I'm really, really sorry," Peyton said.
"I don't want to hear it," Halley snapped. "I just came in here to give you the damned coffee. Now that I have, I am leaving you here in my room, might I add, and going to find Lucas."
"Can you tell him that I am--?"
"If you say sorry one more time, I swear to god I will smack you," Haley threatened. "Brooke and Stephen are in the kitchen. If you need anything, ask them."
She turned around and stalked off, letting the door slam shut behind her. Peyton finished off her coffee before pulling the clean blankets up over her head and going back to sleep.
Stephen parked his car at the cemetery, resting his head on the steering wheel. He was exhausted, after having spent the entire night out and not getting any sleep. He had gone back to the apartment briefly to get himself a cup of coffee and drop Brooke off, only to discover all the damage the party had caused the night before. Now, he and Haley were looking for Lucas, who was MIA and Brooke was probably bitching Peyton out for being an idiot. No one was ready to deal with Nathan, because they didn't know what exactly had happened.
"I hate this town," Stephen muttered as he pulled his sweatshirt over his head and climbed out of the car.
The cemetery was quiet as he made his way through the rows of gravestones. Stephen could tell instantly that Lucas was there, but he was content to let the other teen have a moment or two of privacy. So Stephen sent a text message to Haley, letting her know that he had found Lucas and headed back toward the car.
"You're going to make a great CIA agent one of these days," Lucas said.
Stephen jumped. He wasn't expecting to be discovered that quickly. He turned back to face Lucas.
"You'd make a great one too," he returned. "You have this annoying ability to disappear at a moment's notice."
"I didn't exactly disappear," Lucas said. "You and Haley just blew things out of proportions."
"It was Haley's idea," Stephen said. "I just went along with it because Brooke asked me to."
"So you being the only person knowing that I might have a brain tumor had absolutely nothing to do with it?" Lucas asked looking faintly amused.
"It might have," Stephen said shrugging. "I talked to Doctor Richards yesterday afternoon. He said that he could schedule you an appointment with Dr. Branton some time this week if you wanted."
"Thanks," Lucas said. "I'll think about it."
There was a brief moment of awkward silence as Lucas looked at his mother's gravestone and Stephen stared listlessly off into space.
"Do you want to tell me what happened last night between you and Nathan?" Stephen asked after a while.
"I found him in one of the back rooms, surrounded by a few people I know are drug users," Lucas said. "He had a syringe in his pocket. I talked to him at the river court and he denied it."
"And you thought he was lying," Stephen concluded.
"I did," Lucas said. "I'm not sure if I do now."
"What changed?" Stephen asked.
"I had some time to think," Lucas said. "And now, I don't know. I might have been looking for a fight last night because of everything that happened with Peyton. And Dan apparently found Nathan at the river court last night and offered him as much money as he needed to get the hell out of Tree Hill."
"That's interesting," Stephen commented.
Stephen didn't know a whole lot about the elusive Dan Scott and all the things that happened in the Scott family, but he did know enough to realize that Dan doing anything to Nathan or to Lucas spelled out bad news for everyone involved.
"Yeah," Lucas said. "And after what I said this morning, he's probably going to take it."
"What did you do now?" Stephen asked.
Lucas didn't appreciate Stephen's attempt at humor. He glared stonily at the other teen.
"We got into yet another fight and I told him to go the hell away," he said. "I was pissed because he found me taking Tylenol for my headache."
"There's nothing wrong with that," Stephen disagreed.
Lucas shot him an annoyed glare, one that clearly said that Stephen was missing something important.
"There is if you overdosed on the same meds twice when you were fifteen," he said. "And if you had just accused your brother of being a drug user."
"You've been clean for what, three years now?" Stephen asked. "And he's been clean for three weeks. The odds are in your favor, man."
"Not really, not after some of the things that I told him a couple of weeks ago," Lucas said.
"What sorts of things?"
Stephen should have known that Lucas wasn't going to tell him. There were some things that no one shared with others outside of family.
"Doesn't matter," Lucas said looking away again. He sighed heavily. "I should probably go talk to Jeanette, see if I can get my shift back. God knows I need the money for all the medical bills."
"What happened to the loan Dan gave you?" Stephen asked.
"Heart surgery isn't exactly cheap," Lucas said. "And I like to be able to eat and have clean clothes every now and then. I'll see you later, Stephen."
"Bye," Stephen said as Lucas walked off. He wondered if there was something deeper he was missing.
Shrugging off the thought, he turned and headed back to his car. Too late, did he realize that there was someone else in the cemetery that day.